The comparable figure for Apple Inc.'s iPhone smartphones was 215.5 million and those for Huawei's Honor and Ascend series 72.2 million and 65.7 million each.

China's Xiaomi came fifth with 46.4 million units.

China's OPPO sold 38.4 million units of R series smartphones while another Chinese brand Vivo sold 33.7 million X series and 25.6 million Y series smartphones last year.

Most Chinese smartphones are priced between 300,000 won ($259) and 600,000 won, although Huawei introduced P10 smartphones priced at about 800,000 won at this year's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. The P10 aims to make inroads into the global premium smartphone markets, the SA data showed.

"Chinese smartphone producers need to strengthen their premium phone lineups to catch up with Samsung and Apple," an industry source said.

Apple Inc., meanwhile, had $44.9 billion in operating profit last year, 79.2 percent of the total global smartphone profits of $53.7 billion, the SA figures said.

Apple's operating profit margin stood at 32.4 percent last year.

Samsung Electronics Co.'s smartphone business posted an operating profit of $8.3 billion last year, accounting for 14.6 percent of the global profits.

Samsung's operating profit margin stood at 11.6 percent last year.

Profitability at Chinese smartphone makers is still low, although their cheaper handsets are rapidly gaining market share.

Huawei posted an operating profit of $929 million last year, accounting for 1.6 percent of global profits. OPPO took 1.5 percent of the global profits, while its rival Vivo accounted for 1.3 percent. (Yonhap)